BuddyPress.org

Thanks for the suggestion, @earl_d. I had tried it already, but at your suggestion, I tried again. I did find one user error on part that was partially responsible for the fact that it didn’t work previously (the root group forum had a visibility of “Hidden”, which breaks makes the topic inaccessible to non-admin users). But still, your suggestion didn’t work for me.

TLDR: I got it working, mostly, though not entirely, and not using the approach you suggested, but your suggestion sent me down a fruitful path that ended up working out. See Scenario 4 below. Posting all of this for the benefit (hopefully) of others that may come along some day trying to work through the same issue.

(BTW, the way I interpreted your suggestion was that I should set the top-level group forum to have type=category instead of type=forum. In any case, here are my results…)

Versions

1. WordPress: 4.6
2. bbPress: 2.5.10
3. BuddyPress: 2.6.2

Scenario 1:
(a) Create the BP Group without an associated forum.
(b) Separately, later, create a forum with type=category
(c) Go to the BP Group’s settings to try and associate the Forum to the BP Group

Fail: The forum drop-down has the category forum greyed out, probably because it’s type=category.

Scenario 2:
(a) Create the BP Group *with* an associated Forum (which will automatically have type=forum)
(b) Separately, later, go edit that new Forum’s type, setting type=category
(c) Navigate to the forum’s page within the group. Say’s “the forum is empty.”
(d) Add a new sub-forum type=forum
(e) Create Topic A in the sub-forum
(f) Navigate to the group’s forum again (as a non-admin user)

Expected: Topic A should appear
Actual: Topic A does not appear

(g) How about directly linking to Topic A? Maybe Topic A is accessible to the user, but somehow the template simply isn’t outputting it under (f) above?

Expected: Topic A should be accessible
Actual: Topic A is accessible

Therefore: the user can see and interact with Topic, but BuddyPress doesn’t know about it as being part of the forum.

In retrospect, what seems to have actually happened here is that the original group of type=forum was regenerated and associated with the BP Group. So our topic is probably not showing up in the Group because it’s parent is the sub-forum of a forum the forum that is no longer associated with the group.

Scenario 3:
I thought: If sub-forums don’t work, then maybe multiple sibling forums could work. The Settings page for BuddyPress obviously only allows you to attach one forum, though the data model seems to allow for multiples. However, after slogging through the code, it’s clear that the current version of bbPress thwarts the adding of multiple forums. In at least two places that I saw in the code (like includes/extend/buddypress/groups.php), you have something like this:

// No support for multiple forums yet
$forum_id = (int) ( is_array( $forum_ids ) ? $forum_ids[0] : $forum_ids );

So even if you were to completely bypass the user interface and do a hack of some kind to attach multiple forums to the group, this sort of code would thwart the hack.

Scenario 4:
So what if we go back to Scenario 1, but set up the initial group-associated forum with type=forum, instead of type=category. It would then be selectable in the admin UI, or could just be created automatically upon creation of the group.

(a) Create a new private group with an associated forum
(b) Go create a new private forum and set its parent to be that initial group forum
(c) Create a topic in the sub-forum
(d) Navigate to the forum within the group as a non-admin user

Expected: The sub-forum should be visible and navigable
Actual: It is! The user can click through, see the topic within the sub-forum, and reply on it.

Conclusion: Success! This is the best and most functional scenario thus far.

Key differences from what I’d tried and failed before:

1. All forums involved have to be set to Private visibility. If Hidden, then some aspects of this may success, but others will fail.
2. The forum that is associated with the group will have to be type=forum, not type=category. But I wrote a little plugin that disallows creation of new topics within a forum, without having to mark it CLOSED (thereby also disabling comments). So this will functionally turn this top-level group forum into a category/container forum anyway

Caveat: I have noticed that when my admin user replies on the topic within the sub-forum, the BP Activity is created as expected (seen in the admin screen under Activities), but it doesn’t show up in the BP news feed of my non-admin test user. The other way works, though: if my non-admin user posts a reply to that topic, then this activity shows up in the news feed of my admin user. I need to debug that.

I have the same need/concern.

Unfortunately, I think the suggestion from @openring to use https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbp-private-groups/ won’t work. I’ve looked closely at that plugin. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with BuddyPress groups. Rather, it seems to have to do with creating it’s own role based access groups. So that’s a way of having more access control over your forums, which is valuable in and of itself, but it doesn’t pertain to BuddyPress.

perhaps this might help

https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbp-private-groups/screenshots/

Sounds like you’re using a theme that’s stopping this or when you publish a post you have it set to private.

It’s more for WordPress forums given posts are a WordPress feature and not a BuddyPress one.

Look at your theme files, index.php and look for anything that looks like it’s making those posts only accessible to logged in users. Something like is_user_logged_in().

After chat disruption and sudden 404 errors on all pages, let’s continue here.

All your groups are listed here: http://thebettinguniversity.org/groups/

Most are private and the 2 i found which are public have only one member: the group admin.

I you’re the site admin, you can access to these groups.
If you’re only a group admin, you can only access the group you’re a member/admin of.
You must be logged-in to get access, whatever your status.

For more information about groups, read the codex please.

Groups

Seems also that you have no member page.
Go to BP settings and check that there is a page for members, a page for group, a page for register and one for activation.

Check here:

Configure BuddyPress

Have you tried this plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-simple-private/

There is nothing to do ! Private groups are even private. If user 1 is only member of group A and NOT of group B, user 1 can only act with group A forum.

Aside, question related to bbPress should be asked on bbPress forum, not on BuddyPress forum.

Private niche social network to give an idea of the kind of features that might be indicated

again as i said before. No idea on what kind of features u would be looking at providing to your users

minimize by replacing any plugins that I can with code

that wont help. code or plugin is mostly the same thing IMO if you looking at speed of ur site

Thx *danbp*
With define( ‘BP_GROUPS_DEFAULT_EXTENSION’, ‘members’ ); the default tab for all groups (private and public) DOES change.
But if the user is not a member of a private group, he cannot see the group’s page to request a membership. However, if the user is already a member of private group, of course everything is OK and the default tab is changed as the same as the public groups.
If I don’t remove ‘home’ tab in the group pages, then everything is fine though!

@marcono,

of course that define works also for private groups ! Has nothing to do with group status.

If it really dosn’t work for you, you have an error somewhere, but current home tab is not related to group privacy. Members access is restricted, not the output.

define( 'BP_GROUPS_DEFAULT_EXTENSION', 'members' );

Thank you *danbp*, a lot!

Yes I wanted to do it for all group. define( 'BP_GROUPS_DEFAULT_EXTENSION', 'members' ); works perfectly. But, not for private groups, i.e. if you click on the group which is private, it will not be available.

‘danbp’ your codes work great!
One thing, though, since I removed the ‘home’ item in groups, now if I create a private group or click on a public group icon, the group page will not be available!
I think it is because the ‘home’ item has remained as the default page for the group pages!? I changed my profile default page with ‘define(‘BP_DEFAULT_COMPONENT’, ‘profile’ );’ but it seems for changing group default tab story is different, so I used code suggested here: https://buddypress.org/support/topic/changing-group-tab-display-defaults/

But still no success!?

rest all can be done with buddypress private groups….regarding this “view the package we sent them and be able to download them” do you want to offer digital downloads?

@r-a-y I’ll provide you with developer’s contacts in a private message for more efficient work, because I’m just a newcomer and not sure I can be helpful here further.

1. In BuddyPress, we by default get to see member page. I want to know how to redirect someone who is logging in/ new user after registration to News feed?

search for login redirect plugins for buddypress

2. I want to keep those wall, timeline and all in menu bar instead of profile tab. How to do that?

check wp admin bar codex or associated plugins

3. I am unable to hide admin bar/ that WordPress logo bar for non-admin user. no plugin helping me out.

am aware of atleast 2 plugins which are working for me. u need to test/check which ones work with ur theme/setup

4. how to make the menu such that signed in user can see log out button and other sign in/ register?

via buddypress components in the menus. logged in and logged out menu links

5. how to enable realtime notification and instant messaging private n groups both?

notification is already there and its real time. i belive there is a group chat plugin for buddypress as well

6. how to remove show dropdown menu in profile

that would depend on ur theme which u are using

PS:- I don’t know PHP much. moreover, I cannot afford to hire someone.

then this would take much time and effort to customise it as per ur needs

start from here

Configure BuddyPress

If you want to use forums, you should use bbPress instead.

bbPress = forums plugin
BuddyPress = community plugin (member profiles, user groups, private messaging, notifications)

You can use both, but if a forum is all you need, then use bbPress.

I personally am not sure why you would move from phpBB. Installing WordPress just to use a WordPress forum plugin is not the best way to go about things unless you need to blog and use specific WordPress functionality on your site.

well.. i haven’t updatet Buddypress nor have I installed the beta version. But somehow the problem is solved. I had a problem with MyCred as well and they mentioned something about the plugin “user role editor”. Somehow it (or i did by mistake) change the admin role. So maybe this had something to do with the private message issue as well?

If not it was a theme issue because we did receive a update from the theme.

Anyway. thank you all for helping me with this problem

Many topics about this question are already on the forum. You can also read here to get an idea.